Discover best practices to keep you and your patient prepared and organized for infusion day.
Candy Finley, RN, IgCN, Clinical Nurse Educator II - September 30, 2025
The most important thing you will need in the home as a field nurse are proper supplies. If anything is missing, it may delay the infusion or cause it to be rescheduled. Nufactor provides all ancillary supplies a nurse needs to complete an infusion except for a stethoscope, blood pressure cuff, and thermometer, which are to be provided by the nurse. Upon start of care (SOC), the pharmacy will send a small quantity of extra supplies in a labeled back up kit. This helps to ensure the infusion can be completed if extra supplies are needed unexpectedly. The back up kit also contains items that may only be needed in specific situations such as rate flow tubing or N95 masks. If ordered, an anaphylaxis kit is also provided at SOC.
If you believe a specific item is necessary for establishing or maintaining a peripheral IV (PIV) or for supporting optimal skin integrity for your patients, please reach out to see if Nufactor is able provide the item. If it's not something that the pharmacy routinely carries, provide details about the reason behind the request, as this information to evaluate the request. If your specific request is not approved, someone from Nufactor’s clinical team will reach out to discuss with you further and provide any alternative(s), if available. Commonly requested items that can be tailored to patient or nursing needs include: glove size, drapes for bleeders, winged vs nonwinged angio-catheters, and 24-gauge catheters for patients who are a hard stick. Please note, items in your trunk/car stock are not desired as the sterility cannot be guaranteed due to temperature fluctuations.
Patients may benefit from obtaining an inexpensive storage container for their supplies. Ideally, the storage container would have drawers to separate supplies, but a well-organized single medium-sized bin will work just as well. Keeping supplies organized will help protect them from environmental elements, pets, and make it easier to assess inventory and reorder supplies for the next infusion cycle. For patients and nurses who are new to home infusion therapy, this can help to ease nervousness and allows any nurse who may infuse the patient to know what is available for use. If the patient has a storage container with drawers, a recommended set up is: anaphylaxis kit in the top drawer, flushes in the second drawer, IV start kits, central venous catheter dressing kits, and alcohol prep pads in the third drawer, Curlin Pump tubing/IV tubing in the fourth drawer, and Curlin Pump/batteries in the last drawer.
Prior to the start of every infusion, check the anaphylaxis kit thoroughly to ensure that all items are present and have a current expiration date. If you are unable to locate the anaphylaxis kit or something is missing or expired, you MUST call Nufactor immediately and prior to starting the infusion. It is against Nufactor policy to infuse the patient without having an anaphylaxis kit present when ordered. Please note: if it's not an anaphylactic emergency you DO NOT have permission to borrow any item from the anaphylaxis kit. If you feel that this is required, please reach out to a member of Nufactor’s clinical team prior to doing so.
Each patient is assigned a Patient Care Coordinator (PCC) at the start of therapy. Ongoing scheduling, refill, and supply management is a joint effort between the PCC and the nurse in the field. Nufactor relies on the home infusion nurse to assist in being the eyes and ears for supply management. Accurate inventory management is critical to ensure that the appropriate number of supplies are available without having an excess amount accumulate or not enough to successfully complete each infusion.
The patient is provided with the name, phone number, and email address for their dedicated PCC. Upon SOC, ask the patient for their PCCs information and write it on your demographic sheet. Inventory needs should be assessed on the last day of the course of therapy and communicated to the PCC for the next refill so they will be available for the next infusion course. If an inventory is not provided, the PCC assigned to the patient will send the minimal necessary supplies to administer the infusion. Supplies are typically tailored to the primary assigned nurse, therefore communication between any nurse filling in and the primary nurse is key.
When doing the inventory, also look at the contents and if applicable, the expiration dates of all items in the back up supply kit and anaphylaxis kit. The use of back up kits items is not tracked by the PCC or pharmacy, so if a replacement item is not requested, it may not be available if or when the need arises. The PCC and pharmacy do track expiration dates of the medications provided in the anaphylaxis kit and send replacements as needed. It is good practice to also track these to make sure that the anaphylaxis kit is always complete and in date.
Remember we rely on you to always keep us in the loop about infusion supplies. For any questions or concerns, Nufactor is available 24/7. The pharmacy is open from 8a.m. to 8 p.m. EST (5 a.m. to 5 p.m. PST). After hours, a Pharmacist, Clinical Nurse Coordinator, Clinical Nurse Educator, Patient Care Coordinator, and an Administrator are available using the on-call service. To contact, dial 1-800-323-6832 and follow the prompts to be connected to the on-call answering service.
